Some good insight to the reality of the tourism down there. It's bleak.

Fishing sucks? Oh well forget it then!

Go to www.moorings.com and tell me what you think about owning a boat. I know. I know. Boats are expensive but screw that. What if I don't have to take care of it .....completely?

The cops, just like politicians, are criminals anywhere you go in the world. I am used to corrupt cops. If you've spent any time in an urban area anywhere in America you can't ignore the simliarities. I am sure 10 minutes in that place I will be able to sort that out.

I moved from Denver to get away from an environment that was becoming too violent. I know the irony but, as they say, there it is. I like peace. I have seen enough blood, death, carnage, and violence to last a lifetime. Where I live needs to be damn near monastical.

, that article doesn't say that about 300,000 live there undocumented. From the article........

"Okay, fine. But... what happened to the "other" 300,000 or so Americans cited by less official sources?

The Embassy staff who assisted me in this verification commented that, "The number strikes us as low . . . There are certainly MANY Americans who cross into Mexico via land border who never register with immigration. We at the consular services see a great number of Americans who have been here as long as a year without so much as a passport." They were quick to add, "In any case, the Mexican authorities are the official source for such data."

Also from your article....."However, I find it difficult to believe that more than an additional 15,000 to 20,000 persons make up these FMT holders and "slipped through" categories; certainly, 375,000 people have not slipped through."

Regardless, this was published back in 2000, and it is an article by one person who did this as a project, and he was given very limited information.

Violence is a big problem in Mexico there is no question about that. The point of this thread is the military is getting a handle on it. There is a long way to go but most experts here feel the corner has been turned. Things are improving.

Violence is a big problem in Mexico there is no question about that. The point of this thread is the military is getting a handle on it. There is a long way to go but most experts here feel the corner has been turned. Things are improving.

It states residents instead of Citizens. Many of the crime being committed is from illegals and the mass majority of illegals hail from Mexico so isn't this "test" a bit sqewed? 25% to 33% of those in LA jails are illegals. Drug gangs in the US are connected to the drug cartels in Mexico. I would like to see a report of that test using citizens instead of residents. I know you might be starting this thread based on "safest place to visit" and that doesn't matter if someone is going to commit a crime is legal or not but it would show if the illegal alien problem could solve the bad element problem we have in the US (which I am certain it would). To stay on track with "safest places to visit" , maybe have a report of places spring breakers visit in the US and in other countries. Only bring this up because the "test" has this mentioned of spring break kids in the article.

Officials at the Department of Justice are in “panic mode,” according to multiple sources, as word spreads that congressional testimony next week will paint a bleak and humiliating picture of Operation Fast and Furious, the botched undercover operation that left a trail of blood from Mexico to Washington, D.C.

The operation was supposed to stem the flow of weapons from the U.S. to Mexico by allowing so-called straw buyers to purchase guns legally in the U.S. and later sell them in Mexico, usually to drug cartels.

Instead, ATF documents show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms knowingly and deliberately flooded Mexico with assault rifles. Their intent was to expose the entire smuggling organization, from top to bottom, but the operation spun out of control and supervisors refused pleas from field agents to stop it.

Only after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry died did ATF Agent John Dodson blow the whistle and expose the scandal.

“What people don’t understand is how long we will be dealing with this,” Dodson told Fox News back in March. “Those guns are gone. You can’t just give the order and get them back. There is no telling how many crimes will be committed before we retrieve them.”

But now the casualties are coming in. Mexican officials estimate 150 of their people have been shot by Fast and Furious guns. Police have recovered roughly 700 guns at crime scenes, 250 in the U.S. and the rest in Mexico, including five AK-47s found at a cartel warehouse in Juarez last month.

A Pentagon document has come to light that confirms the U.S. has put special operations troops on the ground in Mexico as the drug war there continues to escalate, notching some 40,000 murders since late 2006.

The document is a Department of Defense briefing presented in mid-May 2009 in Washington, D.C., to a group of business and political leaders from northwest Florida. The “Unclassified/For Official Use Only” briefing reveals the 18 Latin American nations where 7th Special Forces Group soldiers [Airborne Green Berets] were deployed as of fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, 2009.

Among those nations, according to the briefing document, was Mexico.

The document also indicates a 7th Special Forces unit was deployed in Mexico in 1996 as well, as part of a “counter-narcotics” mission.

The revelations in the briefing material are important because, to date, neither the Pentagon nor the State Department has confirmed that U.S. special forces have been deployed inside Mexico — a politically volatile subject in that Latin American nation given the rising drug-war death toll there and the “Yankee” history of U.S. Gunboat Diplomacy in the region.